ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Ethol.
Sec. Applied Ethology and Sentience
This article is part of the Research TopicFarm Animal EthologyView all 8 articles
Allosuckling in domestic hair sheep: a rare behavior associated with multiple births and male lambs
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Ciudad Victoria, Mexico
- 2Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico
- 3Colegio de Postgraduados, Texcoco, Mexico
- 4Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Facultad de Estudios Superiores Cuautitlan, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Mexico
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Allonursing or allosuckling, is a rare but evolutionary intriguing behavior reported in several species includes mammals. Despite the energetic cost of lactation, females occasionally allow alien offspring to suckle, suggesting potential adaptative, physiological, or social functions. However, information on this behavior in domestics sheep, particularly in tropical hair breeds, remains scarce. To determine the frequency and influencing factors of non-filial suckling (NFS) in Saint Croix sheep, a total of 33 hair sheep ewes and their lambs (16 singletons, 13 twins and 4 triplets) were observed from parturition to weaning (8 weeks of lactation). All animals were kept as a group, grazing on a paddock from 8:00 to 14:00 h and penned during the rest of the day. Behavioral observations were conducted 3 times/week (8:00 to 10:00 and from 14:00 to 16:00 h), suckling events (S) and suckling attempts (A) from both filial and non-filial (NF) ewe – lambs pairs and weight gain lambs were recorded. A total of 1664 A and 6203 S were observed, of which 17.0% corresponded to non-filial attempts (NFA) and 0.6% to NFS. Eighty-five percent of the lambs displayed NFA, while 37% displayed NFS, at least one time. The percentage of lambs that displayed NFS was affected by a) Multiple births; more triplets and twins than singletons (50% (6/12) and 38% (10/26) vs. 25% (4/16), p = 0.0001 respectively) b) Sex of the lamb; more males than females 75% (25/33) vs 30% (10/33) p=0.0004, and c) Time of day context; favoring PM = pen over AM = pasture (67.2% vs. 32.8% p = .0075). The age of the lamb did not affect the percentage of lambs displaying NFA or NFS. However, NFA were more frequent in young lambs at early lactation. All ewes received NFA, but only 49% of them allowed NFS (100% of the ewes that gave birth to triplets, 46% bearing twins and 37% bearing singletons). Lambs displayed more NF activities had the lowest average weight gains at weeks 2 and 6, maintaining the same tendency throughout lactation.
Keywords: Allosuckling, Animal Welfare, Lactation, Maternal Behavior, Multiple births, non-filial suckling, Saint Croix, Sheep
Received: 12 Oct 2025; Accepted: 11 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 PEREZ TORRES, Orihuela, Herrera-Haro and Terrazas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: LIBIA IVONNE PEREZ TORRES
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